Civil Rights Movements Archives

July 4, 1963: Hundreds Non-Violently Protest Gwynn Oak Amusement Park’s Segregation Policy

Hundreds of civil rights demonstrators amassed on Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Baltimore, Maryland, to protest the park’s segregation policy.

July 4, 1965: First Annual Reminder Demonstration for Gay and Lesbian Rights

Gay and lesbian activists on the east coast protested in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia to demand equitable treatment and respect.

People’s History of Fourth of July: Beyond 1776 - On July 4, 1876, suffragists crash the Centennial Celebration at Independence Hall to present the “Declaration of the Rights of Women” | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

July 4, 1876: Suffragists Crash Centennial Celebration at Independence Hall

Members of the National Woman Suffrage Association crashed the Centennial Celebration at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to present the “Declaration of the Rights of Women.”

Edna Griffin served in the Women’s Army Corps at Fort Des Moines during WWII.

July 7, 1948: Katz Drug Store Denies Service to Edna Griffin

When WWII veteran Edna Griffin was denied service at a Des Moines drug store, she took the company to court and the lawsuit became a test case.

The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside of the South

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Brian Purnell and Jeanne Theoharis with Komozi Woodard. 2019. 352 pages.
This important work shows how the Jim Crow North maintained inequality in the nation’s most liberal places, and chronicles how activists worked to undo those inequities born of Northern Jim Crow.

The United States Is Not a Democracy. Stop Telling Students That It Is.

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

When our students only learn about this exceptionally strange system, the electoral college, from their corporate-produced history and government textbooks, they have no clue why this is how we choose our president. More importantly, they develop a stunted sense of their own power — and little reason to believe they might have the potential to create something better.

Drawing by an elementary school student for the cover of the Lincoln Collective’s recruitment pamphlet.

July 1, 1970: The Lincoln Pediatric Collective Forms to Serve Bronx Community

Over three dozen young doctors bucked prestige and embraced justice in the summer of 1970 when they began work at Lincoln Hospital, a run-down, underfunded public hospital in the South Bronx that also the site of an occupation by the Young Lords.

A Disability History of the United States

Book — Non-fiction. By Kim E. Nielsen. 2013.
Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, this is the first book to place the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative.

The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Gabrielle Foreman, Jim Casey, and Sarah Patterson. Introduction by P. Gabrielle Foreman. 2021.
This volume of essays is the first to focus on the Colored Conventions movement, the nineteenth century’s longest campaign for Black civil rights.

Separate No More: The Long Road to Brown v. Board of Education

Book — Non-fiction. By Lawrence Goldstone. 2021.
A portrait of the road to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

Julian Bond’s Time to Teach: A History of the Southern Civil Rights Movement

Book — Non-fiction. By Julian Bond. Edited by Pam Horowitz and Jeanne Theoharis with an afterword by Vann Newkirk II. 2021. 356 pages.
For over two decades, civil rights activist Julian Bond taught a popular class on the history of the Civil Rights Movement. This book contains the wisdom and teachings from that class.

Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana

Book — Non-fiction. By Brian K. Mitchell, Barrington S. Edwards, and Nick Weldon. 2021. 256 pages.
This Reconstruction history graphic novel tells the story of Oscar James Dunn, a New Orleanian who became the first Black lieutenant governor and acting governor in the United States.

Kids on the March: 15 Stories of Speaking Out, Protesting, and Fighting for Justice

Book — Non-fiction. By Michael Long. 2021. 204 pages.
A history of children's activism in the United States, focusing on 20th and 21st-century marches, strikes, and social justice movements.

Julian Bond and the Southern Civil Rights Movement: Focus on Georgia

Resources for students and educators from a class about Julian Bond and the long history of the Southern voting rights struggle, told through first-person accounts.

Black Panther Party in the News and the Classroom

COINTELPRO and the Black Panther Party are back in the headlines. Let’s also make sure to teach this critical history in our classrooms.

The First Rainbow Coalition

Film. Directed and produced by Ray Santisteban. Nantes Media LLC. 2019. 56 minutes.
In this documentary, Chicago's Black Panther Party forms alliances across lines of race and ethnicity with other community-based movements in the city to collectively confront issues such as police brutality and substandard housing.

May 19, 1972: First Malcolm X Day Celebration in D.C.

In a personal essay about the longest-running, largest annual event to celebrate the legacy of Malcolm X, Charles Stephenson describes the celebration’s founding and impact of that day in history.

When South African Apartheid Was Overthrown: Lessons for the Movement for Black Lives Today

In this online class, Gerald Lenoir and Jesse Hagopian discussed the history of the anti-Apartheid (SA) movement and how it is relevant to students' lives and the movement for Black lives today.

More than McCarthyism: The Attack on Activism Students Don’t Learn About from Their Textbooks

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

In legislatures across the country, Republican lawmakers are introducing bills to curtail what educators — in public schools and universities — can say and teach about racism and sexism. This latest moral panic from the Right comes on the heels of recent legislation dangerously curtailing the rights of transgender people — especially young people — and enacting another round of voter suppression. It is paramount that we organize to defeat these threats to the health and safety of LGBTQ people, voting rights, and the freedom of educators to tell the truth. It is also worth reminding ourselves — and our students — of other times in U.S. history when powerful politicians manufactured threats and whipped up fear to neutralize progressive challenges to the status quo — the McCarthy Era being a well-known high-water mark of state repression.

America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s

Book — Non-Fiction. By Elizabeth Hinton. 2021. 224 pages.
The rebellion and movement for Black lives of 2020 had clear precursors, this book explains, and any attempt to understand that crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past.

Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People

Book — Non-Fiction. By Kekla Magoon. 2021.
An account of militant revolutionaries and human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community.

Freedom Song

Film. By Phil Alden Robinson. 2006. 117 minutes.
Based on the actual history of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), student activism, and voter registration in McComb, Mississippi, during the Civil Rights Movement.

Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a New America

Book — Non-fiction. By Wesley C. Hogan. 2009. 463 pages.
An innovative study of what the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) accomplished and, more importantly, how it fostered significant social change in such a short time.

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos

Book — Non-fiction. By Rodolfo Acuña. 2020 (9th Edition). 464 pages.
A leading textbook on Chicano history.

Teaching Activity by Rodolfo Acuña

Alcatraz Is Not an Island

Film. By James M. Fortier. 2001. 60 minutes.
Documentary on a small group of Native American students and “Urban Indians” who occupied Alcatraz Island in November 1969, and how it forever changed the way Native Americans viewed themselves, their culture and their sovereign rights.

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